Doctor J

CD?!?!?! LUXURY!!! Back in my day, all we had was tape, with so much hiss it sounded like you were in a pit of snakes and, as the tape stretched, you would have to change your tuning to match. We were lucky to have it, too!

Check the relief, before you do anything else. Hold a string down at the first fret and the last fret. Check the gap between the top of the 8th or 9th fret and the bottom of the string. If there is more than the width of a business card of space, you have too much relief and you need to tighten the truss rod a little. If the string sits on the frets, you have too little. Once you get the relief right, you can then worry about the rest of the setup, but relief must be first.

Wow, all that money on a "mint" bass still doesn't get you a neck which lines up straight despite "some sanding been done in the neck pocket".

No, loads of people change strings, nothing original about that at all.

Fantastic debut, Wolfram, well done and great job from all.

I think this is all of them Aria Pro II ESP Bacchus EBMM Fender USA Fender Japan Ibanez Lakland Hotwire Marceau Warwick Warmoth Godlyke Levinson Blade Rickenbacker Sadowsky Peavey Hamer Alembic G&L Yamaha Charvel GMR Jackson SGC Nanyo PRS Squier

Also, if you're looking at this original, vintage and rare instrument from the golden era of Matsumoku, then you already know what you are looking at. Why explain it, so? 😂

Like "vintage" and "rare", it has lost all meaning aside from something to catch the eye of a desperate buyer. Get all three words together in the same ad and you should win a prize. Other personal favourites include "L@@K!!!" "Matsumoku" and the wonderful "golden era"

What's also worth mentioning is that Elixir coat the finished string as a whole. There are other brands who call their string coated but coat the wire before actually winding the string, which seems utterly pointless and, having foolishly bought the D'Addario and Warwick versions thinking I could save money, learned a valuable lesson the hard way.

In my experience, new Elixirs are not quite as bright as new uncoated strings (not by much, but worth mentioning). The steels are brighter than the nickels, though, so if you like the new string zing, try steels first. That 45-105 set you mention is my set of choice.

You can do the series/parallel switching on any pot. It would be easier to replace a volume pot for one with push/pull capability and leave the blend as is. The series/parallel switching is independent of the main function of the pot. Of course, once you run in serial, you have essentially only one pickup, and one side of the blend getting a signal.

All uncoated strings are prone to dying, regardless of brand. Your biocrud gets into the windings and that's what makes them sound dull. Different hand produce different amounts of goo. Get a set of Elixir Stainless Steels and wave goodbye to dead strings for a long, long time. The coatings stops finger gunk getting into the windings which means the strings sound fresh for much, much longer than uncoated strings.

I also have several basses which were never owned by Jaco and also never played by him. Perhaps I make more of that as an ad feature when selling? I'd only add one 0 to the price for this level of exclusivity, however, not two.

And you have one extra fret. Imagine the possibilities!

Blurb: A quick glance on a small phone screen, with my deteriorating eyesight, of the seemingly deserted resort made me think of the Jonestown compound, Waco and then some kind of Andromeda Strain type of apocalyptic tragedy, as these things frequently end up. Yeah wrong way, I know 🤣 Technical: Yamaha kit with oak snare recorded by Thomann's cheapest mics and interfaces. Bass is an Alembic Orion, guitar is a Bacchus strat, into an Engl preamp. Vocals by the TalkAny app. All mushed together in protools.

It's an ESP. I think it's the same one he played on the remaining MOP tour dates, a black PJ.

I think it's only the guitar which goes up. If you listen to about 1:12 it's clearer that the bass is keeping that D going while the guitar plays the higher chord.

The only time I recall him with an Aria was a pic on the Garage Days sleeve. He had BC Rich with F&J, then ESP, Wal, Bob Rock's NS2 in the studio, Alembic and Sadowsky. In between Alembic and Sadowsky he had a signature Spector SSD based on their SD model which came and went in the blink of an eye. He may have played it, but not for very long.

Is there anyone who thinks of him playing his signature Spector when they think of Jason Newsted?

They are also in the best Rotosound ad ever

I picked this up last year. It's a Concorde, made by Zon in 1985. Fantastic bass.

Love them. That looks like an Aria Pro II XRB, which was the first bass I ever had, in candy apple red. I bought it in 89. I would genuinely love to have a yellow Ironbird - minus the goofy coloured strings

That's what happens to a lot of Aria MB pickups from the 80's. They're split coil, like a precision, in one pickup housing. Frequently one of the coils dies. Perhaps as the epoxy ages it shrinks and rips the wire in the coil. Either way, it's not an unfamiliar problem with Matsumoku epoxy-sealed pickups from the 80's and it's very hard to find something which sounds the same.

No. The chase is better than the catch 😁